The Netherlands may have to process at least 40,000 requests for asylum this year, Gerard Bakker, head of the COA refugee settlement agency, has told BNR radio.

The number of requests for asylum has doubled from the start of the year to between 500 and 600 a week, Bakker said.

‘I want to add at least 10,000 beds to our current options,’ Bakker told the broadcaster. ‘Then we will have between 35,000 and 40,000 places available.’

Almost 30,000 asylum seekers came to the Netherlands last year, the highest number in 10 years, the COA said in April.

Last year, just over 20,000 refugees were given a residency permit, allowing them to move into regular accommodation. In 2013, 15,000 people were given a permit to stay.

If 40,000 asylum seekers do seek refugee in the Netherlands this year, the total will challenge the numbers recorded in the 1990s. In 1994, 53,000 applied for asylum in the Netherlands following the Yugoslavian civil war.

Bakker told BNR that up to 96% of refugees are taken care of in the region they come from and only a small percentage make it to Europe. ‘An even smaller percentage come to the Netherlands,’ Bakker told the broadcaster.